Ann Barry’s nightmare came true, but unlike most folks, she was prepared. The 60-year-old Bowling Green, Ky., teacher, aware of increasing numbers of attacks on elderly people living alone, bought a stout .357 Magnum revolver, took firearms training courses and got a concealed weapon permit. Then she carefully planned her responses to a variety of situations.
When she heard someone kick in the door to her garage, then break down the door into the house with an axe, she called the police, grabbed her roscoe, and took an ambush position in the darkened doorway leading to her bedroom.
When the figure of a man with a pistol in his hand crept down her hallway and paused to look into an empty bedroom, Ann lit him up with a single hollowpoint to the midsection.
“Hey! Whoa! Okay!” the dude shouted while scrambling backward, but “okay” apparently didn’t mean “I surrender,” since he popped five poorly-directed shots her way as he retreated.
Ann just figured he was heading in the direction she wanted him to, so she held her position and waited for the police. Responding coppers found 28-year-old James Sugart moaning for help in a field across from Barry’s house, clutching a stomach wound.
Let’s hope this guy’s prison jacket reads “Lost gunfight with a 60-year-old history teacher.” That ought to earn him lots of points among his fellow cons.
Stick Shafted
Acura Integras are nice cars, but they’re also prime carjacking targets in Southern California. If you’re going to get one, an unnamed 25-year-old in La Palma would advise you to stay away from the automatic transmission — get a carjacker-proof stick shift.
The victim figured the suspects followed her home from a video store, but she really didn’t notice them until they pulled into her driveway behind her, bailed out of their own car, stuck a gun in her face and suggested she get out.
Thankful she wasn’t hurt, she watched as the two teenage carjackers leaped in her ’96 Acura, started it up — and couldn’t move it.
She got the impression that neither of ’em knew how to operate a manual transmission. After several fruitless minutes of starting it up and then killing the engine, the Dastardly Duo slunk back into their own car and faded into the night. They didn’t even say goodbye.
Biathlon Boogie
The coaches of both the Russian and Belorussian national biathlon teams were sharing a ride home from the world championships in Slovakia last February when four Ivans in a beat-up sedan ran them off the road, brandished a couple of little pistols and demanded cash.
Even if they knew what a biathlon is — skiing and shooting — they didn’t know the fully-armed members of both teams were travelling in a bus behind their coaches.
The suspects barely completed their “Give us your dough, tovarich” speeches when said bus slewed to a halt and numerous superbly conditioned world-class marksmen bailed out, hastily loading their rifles and taking positions.
At this point, maybe, just maybe, they considered their opposition only had .22 rifles. Then, for a fraction of a second, maybe, just maybe, they pondered on the fact that these shooters could put a half-dozen rounds through the eye socket of their choice in Olympic-record time.
At any rate, not too many fractions of that same second elapsed before the would-be highwaymen fled for their lives.